Islam and Elections

2004 Report (Continued)


Session I—Opening

Remarks by His Royal Highness
Prince El Hassan bin Talal

His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal opened the workshop by stressing its important contribution in advancing the spirit of dialogue as a means of developing international understanding, universal consciousness, and human values. Calling the workshop an opportunity to focus on the dignity of man and on human rights, he drew attention to the notion of “anthropolitics”: a politics in which people come first. He also urged participants to concentrate on governance rather than governments. Since September 11, he noted, the world’s emphasis on people has eroded, and instead we have seen a rise in hardness: hard power, hard security, and hard talk. Such hardness is predicated on a political culture of war and ignores the politics of peace. Warning of the capacity of war-focused politics to destroy the world, Prince Hassan stressed the cultivation of civilized methods for evolving a code of conduct that will lead the world back to anthropolitics, with the human being as the central concern.

At the heart of the anthropolitical approach is the challenge this workshop is designed to address: that of finding sound channels that empower people to direct their governments to act in their interests. To confront poverty, deprivation of rights, and many forms of corruption, we must move from a culture of fear to a culture of participation. The main question noted in the background paper is how to re-foundationalize the contribution and consent of the governed.

The issue of participatory governance is global, but has special resonance for many Muslims today. Prince Hassan affirmed that the time has come to say to the world that there is no monopoly on democracy. Moreover, he observed, what matters in the final analysis is not whether one lives under a system that calls itself democratic (based on its holding elections), but the political-social compact that guarantees the pillars of democracy: the dignity of the human being, respect for human rights, the rule of law, the protection of rights and freedoms, accountability, transparency, and social justice. He added that whatever the precise terminology of participation employed, the consent of the governed is part of Islam’s value system. In the Middle East, as elsewhere, he continued, it is not enough to merely react to initiatives taken by others such as the Bush administration’s “Greater Middle East Initiative.” We need to develop indigenous understandings of the concerns of the moment.

Prince Hassan then turned to the issues surrounding the practice of elections. He put particular stress on four questions raised in the background paper, asking: (1) What is the goal of a democratic system, however defined? (2) Who guarantees the implementation of the electoral system so that the voter may make a free choice in safety? (3) What are the innate flaws of an electoral system? (4) And, given the number of historical instances in which democratic governments have oppressed minorities, how can an Islamic approach promote total participation and pluralism?

Prince Hassan concluded by reminding the participants that it is these concrete considerations that must inform our discussion of the broader issues of Islam and good governance. The aim of this workshop is to determine whether and in what ways Islam can contribute to the furthering of discussion.

Remarks by Mustapha Tlili, Founder and Director of Dialogues: Islamic World-U.S.-The West

Mustapha Tlili drew attention to the mandate given this workshop by the recommendations of the “Clash of Civilizations or Clash of Perceptions?” conference held in Granada, Spain, in October 2002. Participants in that conference called for a workshop on elections that “would draw observers and practitioners from both Muslim and Western societies to discuss common goals and problems [by] delineating how elections are run and the places they hold in Muslim societies” through “a focused dialogue among equals.”

Tlili said that despite the fact that good governance is supported by Islamic scripture, tradition, and heritage, there seems today to be a striking deficit of good governance in the Muslim world, whether considered in terms of the absence of the rule of law, freedom of expression, transparency, or accountability. The question therefore is how to put the principle of good governance into workable structures and processes. He noted that the perceived use of the term democracy as an ideological weapon by various Western powers has recently made the concept suspect in the Muslim world. Islam and its value system seem to be the object of scrutiny; the religion has been cast by many as antithetical to democracy.

Tlili cautioned against calls for the democratization of the Muslim world under altruistic pretenses; he said that we must learn to read between the lines when these calls are made by states that have shown no concern for the victims of repressive regimes around the world, and have in some cases supported those regimes.

Tlili reiterated Prince Hassan’s call for respecting the heritage, tradition, and identity of what is one of the world’s greatest civilizations: that of Islam. The Qur’an, the sayings of the Prophet (hadith), and Muslim philosophers all advocate the seeking of goodness, universal human values, and universal principles. It is these standards that underpin the moral tradition of Islam and also form the basis of Western civilization.

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